Ty I think of you as a friend. I only met you once, and you picked a restaurant the seemed to be over a sewer, but I like you very much. But calling you out for what seems a bias is no more trolling than telling Sebby’s his vote made Trump prez.

If Sebby has more interest in criminal justice reform than I do, I don't say that he is "biased" towards criminal justice reform or criminal defendants, or biased against prosecutors. He might be, but that would be different.

If I am less sympathetic to Israel's current government on matters of policy than you or many Americans are, which I suspect is the case, that does not mean I am "anti-Israel", which carries more than a whiff of anti-Zionism. It may just mean that, like many Israelis, I take a different view of what is in Israel's interests than its current government does, and/or that I take a different view of what is in the United States' interests than the Israeli government does, which wouldn't be surprising inasmuch as the Israeli government was elected by Israelis to serve Israel, not by Americans to serve America. Nor do any of those views (necessarily) have anything to do with "bias" and Neville Chamberlain's anti-Semitism. Even so, some Americans find it useful to accuse people they disagree with on foreign policy of anti-Semitism, and perhaps some of them even believe it.

There are anti-Semites who are anti-Israel and disagree with Israel's government. There are jackasses who live in Michigan. None of that means that disagreement with Israel's government makes you biased against Jews, or that you are a jackass.

Since we weren't talking about any of this just now until you posted about my purported anti-Israel and philo-Chamberlain views, what you've said sounds a lot like trolling. Since you are a friend and I assume you don't want to lightly accuse me of anti-Semitism for no good reason, I will assume that wasn't what you meant and that you aren't a jackass.

__________________“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof”
- John Kenneth Galbraith

Until I read this I never realized that most countries are seldom call "the NAME." Russia is just Russia, Canada- Canada etc. The US of A and The USSR are exceptions. But Ukraine has always been the Ukraine ("the Ukraine is weak Newman!"), until i read this, where "
Ukraine" gav eme pause because it sounded wrong. Is there some rule or is this another random English quirk?

If Sebby has more interest in criminal justice reform than I do, I don't say that he is "biased" towards criminal justice reform or criminal defendants, or biased against prosecutors. He might be, but that would be different.

If I am less sympathetic to Israel's current government on matters of policy than you or many Americans are, which I suspect is the case, that does not mean I am "anti-Israel", which carries more than a whiff of anti-Zionism. It may just mean that, like many Israelis, I take a different view of what is in Israel's interests than its current government does, and/or that I take a different view of what is in the United States' interests than the Israeli government does, which wouldn't be surprising inasmuch as the Israeli government was elected by Israelis to serve Israel, not by Americans to serve America. Nor do any of those views (necessarily) have anything to do with "bias" and Neville Chamberlain's anti-Semitism. Even so, some Americans find it useful to accuse people they disagree with on foreign policy of anti-Semitism, and perhaps some of them even believe it.

There are anti-Semites who are anti-Israel and disagree with Israel's government. There are jackasses who live in Michigan. None of that means that disagreement with Israel's government makes you biased against Jews, or that you are a jackass.

Since we weren't talking about any of this just now until you posted about my purported anti-Israel and philo-Chamberlain views, what you've said sounds a lot like trolling. Since you are a friend and I assume you don't want to lightly accuse me of anti-Semitism for no good reason, I will assume that wasn't what you meant and that you aren't a jackass.

Good conservative ideas become liberal ideas. The only conservative ideals left are those that are not good. Some of them are not good, but because they are plutocratic the plutocrats like them, and they often pass. Some of them are not good, but because they are fascist the fascists like them, and they often pass. The others? Conservatives run from them: consider the conservative flight from RomneyCare. Why do conservatives run from them? Because once they become attractive to liberals they no longer serve as identity markers, and identity markers are primary.

__________________“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof”
- John Kenneth Galbraith

Until I read this I never realized that most countries are seldom call "the NAME." Russia is just Russia, Canada- Canada etc. The US of A and The USSR are exceptions. But Ukraine has always been the Ukraine ("the Ukraine is weak Newman!"), until i read this, where "
Ukraine" gav eme pause because it sounded wrong. Is there some rule or is this another random English quirk?

Things are called "the NAME" when they are not a country, but a part of another country/empire. The Ukraine, the Sudetenland, the Midlands, the Pale, the Netherlands (in the Hapsburg Empire). When they become a country, they sometimes shed the "the" in order to assert their own nationhood, as Ukraine did.

__________________“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof”
- John Kenneth Galbraith

But Ukraine has always been the Ukraine ("the Ukraine is weak Newman!")

Having had the misfortune of having had dealing with the government of Ukraine, I've had the opportunity to learn that this frowned upon by the locals.

Quote:

Is there some rule or is this another random English quirk?

Seems like there's a tie to British colonialism somehow - the Levant, the Sudan, some others I can't think of right now - but it may just be a relic of historically referencing a region that wasn't a state, or was more than one state.

Seems like there's a tie to British colonialism somehow - the Levant, the Sudan, some others I can't think of right now - but it may just be a relic of historically referencing a region that wasn't a state, or was more than one state.

It's not a function of British colonialism but it is a question of English usage. In French, for example, countries commonly have the definite article before them: l'Ukraine, la Russie, la Chine. So there's no pejorative implications to referring to l'Ukraine as there is when you refer to the Ukraine in English, which implicitly demotes it from nation-state to component of something larger.

__________________“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof”
- John Kenneth Galbraith

It's not a function of British colonialism but it is a question of English usage. In French, for example, countries commonly have the definite article before them: l'Ukraine, la Russie, la Chine. So there's no pejorative implications to referring to l'Ukraine as there is when you refer to the Ukraine in English, which implicitly demotes it from nation-state to component of something larger.

Until I read this I never realized that most countries are seldom call "the NAME." Russia is just Russia, Canada- Canada etc. The US of A and The USSR are exceptions. But Ukraine has always been the Ukraine ("the Ukraine is weak Newman!"), until i read this, where "
Ukraine" gav eme pause because it sounded wrong. Is there some rule or is this another random English quirk?

My boyfriend was born in the USSR (in the Ukraine) and grew up in post-Soviet Ukraine. As he told me, as soon as Ukraine was no longer a Soviet Socialist Republic, other countries dropped the article when referring to it. It never had the article in Russian/Ukrainian because those languages don't have articles.

My boyfriend was born in the USSR (in the Ukraine) and grew up in post-Soviet Ukraine. As he told me, as soon as Ukraine was no longer a Soviet Socialist Republic, other countries dropped the article when referring to it. It never had the article in Russian/Ukrainian because those languages don't have articles.

My most mundane legal issue ever is whether this - in a Japanese patent is a negative sign (my side) or a hyphen. Today we received an opinion from a translator that the character preceding the - was an article meaning both "a" and "the," and it would be incorrect to have an article before a hyphen. I credit you, and dtb (sniff) for my understanding the opinion.

It's not a function of British colonialism but it is a question of English usage. In French, for example, countries commonly have the definite article before them: l'Ukraine, la Russie, la Chine. So there's no pejorative implications to referring to l'Ukraine as there is when you refer to the Ukraine in English, which implicitly demotes it from nation-state to component of something larger.

Great lecture. Normally I’d expect such an educated thing to come from someone in The New England.